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Strategy for a Networked World is a management book published in 2017 and written by Rafael Ramirez and Ulf Mannervik, scholars at the Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford. The book is based on the concept of value creating systems (VCS), introduced by the late management consultant and researcher Richard Normann and Rafael Ramirez in the in the Harvard Business Review article Designing Interactive Strategy. Richard Normann also touched upon the concept of VCS in his last book Reframing Business: When the Map Changes the Landscape. This book, Strategy for a Networked World, further adds and elaborates on the VCS concept with over 20 years of experience of applying the approach in strategy work with small NGOs and large organizations.

Book content
The book argues that in today’s service-based, solution-oriented, Internet of Things and networked world, what matters are the interactions among networked parties, and how these provide many kinds of value. These relationships are then configured in the so called value creating system (VCS). In a VCS there is an interplay of different stakeholders with different value offerings and different forms of value (e.g. sustainability, societal, economic, etc.).

The authors further state that the strategic ability to invite, interest, enroll, and mobilize others into a designed value-creating system is in networked contexts as important as is a focus on competition. Networked strategy is explained through the following four foundational premises:


 * Systems of interactions: It is the networked structure of the VCS as a whole that matters. As the network evolves it can become a powerful force for disruption and transformation. The VCS is not defined by conventional industry borders according to Ramirez and Mannervik, but rather by the interactions that co-create values in the system.
 * Collaboration: One should not hold a perspective of a passive consumer and an active producer, nor of positioning in conventional industries defined by value chains; again, relationships are the focus. They are contingent, interactive, dynamic and mutual. Key to success in systems is not competition, but to attract others into systems to co-create different values with each other.
 * Multiple values: Different parties will value different aspects of the networked system, not all of which will be monetary. Understanding these values is critical to understanding the interactions at play, and to enable better system efficiency and better values. In a well-designed VCS the values make music, not noise.
 * Design: Strategy is about designing offerings. Offerings are designed, with other suppliers and customers joining the producer as co-designers (as well as co-creators) of value creating offerings.

Chapters

 * 1) Introduction to Value Creating Systems
 * 2) Why a Socio-Ecological Approach to Strategy?
 * 3) Re-framing the Idea of Value
 * 4) Effective Value Creating System Designs
 * 5) How Offerings Link Co-Creators in Value Creating Systems
 * 6) Analyzing the Designs of Existing Value Creating Systems
 * 7) Assessing the Future Contexts a VCS Design Might Inhabit
 * 8) Designing a New Value Creating System
 * 9) Realizing New Value Creating System Innovations
 * 10) The Growth of VCS Thinking

Notables cases
Empirical cases in the book include:


 * EDF
 * Scania AB
 * Royal Dutch Shell
 * Facebook